Putting

Putting

Your short game putting is one of the easiest things to start to get feedback from. A good idea for your practice on the putting green is take 6 tees, place them a putter and a halve lengths away around the hole. The idea is to try and hole six out of six putts in a row. If you can hole three putts in a row you will start to feel a little pressure and if you make it to the last putt you are really putting yourself in a competition frame of mind. I think this drill an excellent way to measure your progress and a great way to put yourself in a pressure situation. You can always move the tees around a little and start to try different breaks.

Back to Basics

Back to Basics


If you can remember the first thing you were told and learned about when you started golf was how to grip the club. It is very important that you have a good relationship between your hands and the clubface during your swing. Your hands are the only part of your body that actually touch the club, so getting it right is essential. As the great Sam Snead once said " If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they´d starve to death". If you are learning the game or playing already have a quick check on your grip. Having the correct grip will help you find the correct swing plane, and help generate some extra power. The correct grip will not only benefit your accuracy with your long game, you will also see a big improvement with your short game.

Starting with your left hand, you want the grip to run through the fingers with the pad of your hand sitting on the top of the club. If the club is resting in the palm of your hand you are unable to hinge your left wrist up and down. Your left thumb is in position pointing just to the right of the middle of the grip. the V in your left hand is now pointing to your right shoulder. I use the overlapping grip but some of you will use the interlocking grip, make sure that the right hand wraps over and the crease in the middle of your right hand fits onto your left thumb. The V in your right hand will be pointing in the same direction now as your left hand. For the pressure in your hands it should feel like you are holding a tube of toothpaste with no toothpaste coming out.

WEDGE PLAY

Wedge Play

 

Many golfers find it difficult to control the distance of their wedge play. You see too many golfers playing a pitch not knowing what length of swing to make. You can imagine playing from 60 yards with water short of the green and bunkers at the back of the green, not the easiest shot to play. The key is to practice making the same length backswing as your follow through. Make some practice swings and try to make the same length backswing as your follow through, this will allow you to keep the pace of your swing the same and control the distance by its length. For shorter shots swing slightly short back and through. I always imagine when playing with my pitching wedge the club starting at  6 o´clock, from 60 yards i try to swing back to 10 o´clock and finish at 2 o´clock on my follow through turning my body to the target. Give this a try when you get a chance to practice, you will start to see an improvement in your distance control and strike.

Better Rotation

Better Rotation

The power in your golf swing comes mainly from the way your upper body rotates against the resistance of your lower body. If you are unsure that your rotation is not working effectively this is a great drill to help you achieve this. Like the photo above get 2 alignment sticks, put a stick between your belt buckle and the other held across your shoulder line. Yours hip should turn at a 45 degrees while your shoulders will turn at 90 degrees. This is the torque that is created in your swing to allow speed through the ball. It involves good flexibility which all the top players in the world have an abundance of. Your lower body must create the resistance against your upper body to maintain the disassociation to promote power in the swing. Try doing this in front of a mirror and see can you improve your rotation.

Ball Below The Feet

Ball Below the Feet

Last month I spoke about an uphill lie and changes you must make to your set up to play this shot. On the course you will face all sorts of awkward lies and you must make the necessary changes to your set up to play each shot. A ball below your feet is a difficult shot especially if you are setting up incorrectly to play it. It is a very tricky shot to play and the typical scenario is the ball drifting right of the target and you lose your balance. The lie of the land affects the shot very much, what you have to do is aim further left than you would normally. Aim for a target further left than you normally would, set the clubface up pointing at that and set your body alignment feet, hips, shoulders parallel with the clubface to the target. With the slope your weight will naturally be more on the front of your feet. To counteract this feel like your weight is back more on the balls of your feet. Try this the next time you are practicing to get the feel and you will notice a better contact with more control.

Uphill Lies

UPHILL LIES

The course here in Santo da Serra is in magnificent shape after the recent rain and should be in great condition for the Madeira Islands Open in May 16th to 20th. This month I am going to help you prepare for those difficult uphill lies which is a feature of the sloping fairways at the club. Many of my lessons ask me to help them with this shot. They find it hard to hit the ball sweetly and usually come up short of the green with their approach, this is usually due mainly to a poor set up and it is essential to alter your set up when you are playing this shot. You must remember that when playing from an uphill lie the slope will add more loft to the club so you need to take more club to reach the distance to your target. The ball will travel from left to right (draw) because it is more difficult to get on to your left side to finish your swing with the slope. It is therefore important that you aim to the right of the target. Place the ball further forward and try and get your shoulders parallel with the slope feeling like you are leaning away from the target. If you lean into the slope it will create alot of mishits you need to feel that your set up will allow you to swing with the slope. If you think of it posture like a camera tripod and how you would have to adjust it for this slope, this is what you are trying to achieve with your stance. Try this when you are out on the course and you will notice an improvement in your balance and strike.

Better Bunker Shots

Better Bunker Shots

How often has your bunker play let you down, you take two or three shots to get out of the bunker and when you do get it out of the bunker the ball is along way from the flag. Having seen many of my pupils playing bunker shots the most common fault that most golfers try to dig the ball out of the bunker. What you may notice is that you have taken way to much sand and the mark in the bunker is very deep. I was lucky enough to see Luke Donald, arguably the best bunker player in the world right now playing some bunker shots in a practice round. His distance control and range of shots was a pleasure to watch, each time he played a bunker shot the angle of attack was perfectly shallow as he hit each shot. Next time you are practicing make a couple of changes to improve your bunker play. Position the ball more forward in your stance just in line with your left heel,. try and hit about half an inch before the ball and try taking a thinner sliver of sand as you hit the ball. These changes will help produce a shallower angle of attack and you should notice a big improvement in the contact of your shots.

Chipping hit your landing zone

Chipping hit your landing zone

Many golfers neglect their short game and when it comes to playing on the course it is common to lack any feel and confidence is at a low around the greens.
If you become a good chipper of the golf ball you will knock many more strokes of your scorecard. To be a good chipper you must have a vision of the shot you are looking to play. You must know where you want the ball to land and how it will react when it hits your landing area, how it will roll and fly. When setting up to play a chip shot open your feet and left hip (right handed golfer) a little left of  the target. Ensure that the ball is back in your stance on line with your right foot, place 60% of weight on the left foot and for a better feel place your hands in the middle of the grip. To have a clear image for playing a pitch shot try this on the chipping green next time. Place 3 landing areas on the green, at different distances between you and the hole. Work on using a variety of different shots that land on your target and watch the ball release to the hole. I have put 3 baskets down as in the photo and landing the ball on that distance. Each distance will require a different imagination to play the shot. As you get comfortable playing each shot get yourself into a routine as you would on the course and begin to see the shot, feel the shot with a practice swing and then play the shot.